The Complete Sherlock Holmes

ut why Turkish?” asked Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, gazing fixedly at my boots. I
was reclining in a cane-backed chair at
the moment, and my protruded feet had
attracted his ever-active attention.
“English,” I answered in some surprise. “I got
them at Latimer’s, in Oxford Street.”
Holmes smiled with an expression of weary patience.
“The bath!” he said; “the bath! Why the relaxing
and expensive Turkish rather than the invigorating
home-made article?”
“Because for the last few days I have been feeling
rheumatic and old. A Turkish bath is what
we call an alterative in medicine—a fresh startingpoint,
a cleanser of the system.
“By the way, Holmes,” I added, “I have no
doubt the connection between my boots and a
Turkish bath is a perfectly self-evident one to a
logical mind, and yet I should be obliged to you
if you would indicate it.”
“The train of reasoning is not very obscure,
Watson,” said Holmes with a mischievous twinkle.
“It belongs to the same elementary class of deduction
which I should illustrate if I were to ask you
who shared your cab in your drive this morning.”
“I don’t admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,”
said I with some asperity.
“Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical
remonstrance. Let me see, what were the points?
Take the last one first—the cab. You observe that
you have some splashes on the left sleeve and
shoulder of your coat. Had you sat in the centre
of a hansom you would probably have had no
splashes, and if you had they would certainly have
been symmetrical. Therefore it is clear that you sat
at the side. Therefore it is equally clear that you
had a companion.”
“That is very evident.”
“Absurdly commonplace, is it not?”
“But the boots and the bath?”
“Equally childish. You are in the habit of doing
up your boots in a certain way. I see them on this
occasion fastened with an elaborate double bow,
which is not your usual method of tying them. You
have, therefore, had them off. Who has tied them?
A bootmaker—or the boy at the bath. It is unlikely
that it is the bootmaker, since your boots are nearly
new. Well, what remains? The bath. Absurd, is it
not? But, for all that, the Turkish bath has served
a purpose.”
“What is that?”
The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax
815
“You say that you have had it because you need
a change. Let me suggest that you take one. How
would Lausanne do, my dear Watson—first-class
tickets and all expenses paid on a princely scale?”
“Splendid! But why?”
Holmes leaned back in his armchair and took
his notebook from his pocket.
“One of the most dangerous classes in the
world,” said he, “is the drifting and friendless
woman. She is the most harmless and often the
most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter
of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory.
She has sufficient means to take her from
country to country and from hotel to hotel. She
is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions
and boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken
in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she
is hardly missed. I much fear that some evil has
come to the Lady Frances Carfax.”
I was relieved at this sudden descent from the
general to the particular. Holmes consulted his
notes.
“Lady Frances,” he continued, “is the sole survivor
of the direct family of the late Earl of Rufton.
The estates went, as you may remember, in the
male line. She was left with limited means, but
with some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery
of silver and curiously cut diamonds to which she
was fondly attached—too attached, for she refused
to leave them with her banker and always carried
them about with her. A rather pathetic figure,
the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in
fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange change, the
last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a
goodly fleet.”
“What has happened to her, then?”
“Ah, what has happened to the Lady Frances?
Is she alive or dead? There is our problem. She
is a lady of precise habits, and for four years it
has been her invariable custom to write every second
week to Miss Dobney, her old governess, who
has long retired and lives in Camberwell. It is this
Miss Dobney who has consulted me. Nearly five
weeks have passed without a word. The last letter
was from the Hotel National at Lausanne. Lady
Frances seems to have left there and given no address.
The family are anxious, and as they are exceedingly
wealthy no sum will be spared if we can
clear the matter up.”
“Is Miss Dobney the only source of information?
Surely she had other correspondents?”
“There is one correspondent who is a sure
draw, Watson. That is the bank. Single ladies must